Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Alfa Romeo’s Team Representative, reflected on working with Sauber Group CEO Andreas Seidl claiming he is the perfect leader for their organization.
Much has been going on at Alfa Romeo and Sauber group recently, with Audi taking part ownership of the team, a stake that will gradually increase until 2026 when the German Automaker makes it official Formula 1 debut. Moreover, a changes of management has also taken place with Frederic Vasseur leaving the team to replace Mattia Binotto as Ferrari boss.
Andreas Seidl was scooped from McLaren to take up the role of Sauber Group CEO and spearhead the transformation into Audi’s F1 works team in 2026, while Alessandro Alunni Bravi was places as Alfa Romeo’s team representative, basically the F1 team boss as Seidl’s role will be much broader at group level.
Alfa Romeo will be ending their Title sponsorship with Sauber in 2023, but the team will keep using Ferrari power units until the end of the 2025 F1 season, after which they switch to Audi power. So busy times at Hinwil, but Alunni Bravi claims development has been underway since 2017, when Vasseur replaced Monisha Kaltenborn at the helm and the road to recovery started after BMW left F1 and sold its stake in the organization to Peter Sauber after the global economic crisis in 2009.
A full overhaul of the facilities at Hinwil
“We started this plan in 2017,” Alunni Bravi revealed, speaking to F1’s Official Website. “We started from very far. We were almost starting from scratch in 2017. We had nice facilities from the BMW era, but they remained like this for the next 10 years – no upgrades, no improvements. We were 180 people. Now we are more than double.
“You cannot compare what Sauber was in 2017 and what it is now. It’s a completely different team. We have our own simulator, we have one of the largest production capacities for manufactured parts in Switzerland.
“The wind tunnel has been improved, the hardware remained the same, but the software measuring system, all the technical elements of the wind tunnel have been upgraded to current state of the art, new machines, more automation, better design tools.
“All areas have been improved, thanks to investment of shareholders in last five years. It’s a process you can never stop. If F1, you stop, you make a step back,” Alunni Bravo maintained.
But with major change over the horizon for Sauber; it is naturally is challenge to allocate resources and set short, medium, and long term goals.
“We are focused on the here and now and we are focused on the future,” Alunni Bravi said. “Andreas [Seidl] and I are working on developing the team. We have an important target in the future.
Seidl a strong leader
“We’re proud Audi/Volkswagen Group has chosen Sauber Group as a strategic partner for their entry to F1, but you cannot separate things, Andreas is focused on the present, like myself. We work together.
“He’s a strong leader,” Alunni Bravi said of his boss. “I didn’t know him before. It’s a pleasure to work with him. We are developing our organisation, trying to have different profiles, with different competencies, create this team-work approach that in the future will be important when you become a bigger team, when you have to take care of all the areas, the chassis department, the engine department, deal with a car manufacturer in all the commercial area.
“We need a more collaborative structure – and we are starting now. It’s a process. Andreas is focused on everything. He is the perfect leader for our organisation,” the Italian lawyer insisted.
Alfa Romeo finished the 2022 F1 season sixth in the Constructors’ Standings, their best finish in years, and are currently eighth, three races into the 2023 campaign, and Alunni Bravi explained the team’s development strategy over the course the season.
Alunni Bravi said: “To have constant upgrades, maybe small upgrades, all season is better than to have two or three big packages. The fight is very tight, so you need to have upgrades on a race-by-race basis. It’s what we are doing.
“We introduced a new front nose and wing and assembly [in Australia]. It’s a natural evolution of what we introduced last year in Japan. We will have upgrades for [the next race in] Baku, Imola and Barcelona,” he revealed.